iPhone 6 rumor rollup for the week ending August 23

With the Next iPhone(s) announcement barely three weeks away, the iOSphere hungered and thirsted for data, for facts, for truth about iPhone 6, iPhone 5C, and iPhone 5S.

Instead, it got five different definitions of what "cheap" means for the expected plastic iPhone 5C.

And it got gold.

You read it here second.

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"Personally, I don't give a hoot about a gold iPhone. Mashable will continue to report on gold iPhone rumors, since our readers seem to care. I will not be making a big deal of it otherwise. Except for writing this post. Which is really about how I don't care about the gold iPhone. Is that clear?"~ Lance Ulanoff, editor in chief, Mashable.com, on why he, and we, don't need no stinkin' colors, even though his dumb readers seem to believe otherwise.

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iPhone 5C will be priced at, uh, less than the not-5C If you're already convinced that Apple is launching a cheap or low cost or less expensive iPhone, usually now called iPhone 5C, then the only question left, really, is: what price Apple will slap on it?

This week the iOSphere was rife with answers. And when you add them all up, the answer is...that no one knows.

At KnowYourMobile, Clare Hopping assured readers that iPhone 5C will be priced at full retail between $400 and $500, based on speculation by KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

Currently, the prices for iPhone 5 at Apple.com for an unlocked iPhone 5 are $649 for 16GB, $749 for 32GB, and $849 for 64GB. Typically, with a new iPhone, Currently, the unlocked iPhone 4S, in keeping with Apple's practice, sells for $549.

Kuo also puts forward the novel theory that the plastic-bodied iPhone 5C will replace the aluminum bodied iPhone 5, which will no longer be sold. "We've learned that the iPhone 5 line will be terminated from 4Q13, while the iPhone 4S line will carry on," Kuo says, according to KnowYourMobile. "From this, we infer that iPhone 5C is launched to replace iPhone 5."

Meaning "the 5C model will be positioned as midrange," according to Kuo. His breakdown of pricing: iPhone 5S, $600 to $700; iPhone 5C, $400 to $500; iPhone 4S, $300 to $400.

Another pricing option, suggested by John Gruber at his DaringFireball blog last week, is a lower-cost iPhone that essentially is based on adding a cellular radio to the iPod touch. The touch starts at $229 for the 16GB model, which has only a low-end video camera; and $299 for 32GB and $399 for 64GB, both of which have a 5 megapixel main camera. The cellular radio would add something to those prices, but Apple might be able to offer a plastic-bodied phone starting under or just over $300.